The contemporary appeal of islands

Lawrence Durrell described the condition of "islomania" as "a rare but by no means unknown affliction of the spirit" in people who find islands "irresistible." He was describing the psychological compulsion which drives many writers, in particular, to try to satisfy an inner need. Durrell's own "island books" include Corfu (where he discovered both Greece and himself), Rhodes and Cyprus. Today, we would call this "the tourist gaze," the outsider wondering what it is like to be an insider.

Greece, with its hundreds of inhabited islands, and thousands uninhabited, offers a huge variety of unique island cultures. It's been a perennial attraction for island-hopping backpackers and an early factor in the Greek tourist industry. It would be crazy to suggest that there is any single pen that could do justice to this spectrum of island lives.

The other side of the coin is the...